4/30/09

What's for sale at the San Francisco Botanical Garden plant sale this weekend?

I helped a little bit with set-up for the big sale this year. The members' preview sale is Friday night, May 1, from 5 to 9 p.m. You don't have to be a member to attend. You just have to be a member to buy, and I believe you can even buy a membership when you buy your plants. The sale opens to the public on Saturday morning from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There will still be plenty of plants on Saturday, so don't worry about that. Many people think the Saturday sale is a lot mellower too. Some of the members can get a little hot under the collar when you put a bunch of plants in front of them.

Shop for perennials and natives under the blooming Shogetsu cherries...

You can buy Gunnera, if you have room to plant it. These are just waking up from dormancy and will get, oh, 10 times bigger before the season ends.

My favorite ground-cover for dry shade: Omphalodes cappodocica in a 1-gallon pot for a mere $6!

Scroll over pictures for plant names...

It's nice to see Restios available in 1-gallon pots; usually you have to buy them much larger. A whole slew of them.

I'll bet these will go quickly:

California natives are a specialty, and they sell many obscure manzanitas.

They always have a lot of native iris, including the purple hybrid 'Joey'. (Sidenote: If you can be a passenger on a drive down highway 1 [or ride your bike?] to Santa Cruz, you can see an amazing Iris show right now.)

This fern caught my eye. Sorry for the blurry picture.

Inside, they have a lot of vireyas for sale, in various sizes and prices. (And several tables full of regular rhodies, too.)

Many agaves and succulents in small pots--perfect for your fitting into your rock wall.

They always have Crassula corymbulosa for sale.

Kalanchoe beharensis--this is one my favorite succulents for container planting. These become quite remarkable after a few years.

Epiphyllum cuttings.

Variegated kerria in 6" pots.

Abutilon city.

Begoniaville.

I know almost nothing about begonias, but they've been on my mind ever since Lotusland. Begonia luxurians.

There are at least a dozen different Clematis available, including 'Mrs. N. Thomson' here,

There are four tables of Protaceae, but the only picture that came out was Grevellia sericea.

I have houseguests this weekend, so I won't be able to attend. Which is good, in a way.